


If Wishes Were Horses...

by MissWoodhouse



Category: Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy
Genre: But also a human being with needs, F/F, F/M, Gen, Introspection and AUs, Sonya Is Good
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2018-12-20 00:59:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 8,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11909916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissWoodhouse/pseuds/MissWoodhouse
Summary: Or, in which selflessness is not a virtue and if it were Sonya Rostova would not have it.A Collection of Sonya Variations





	1. The Pride of Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, the life of a poor relation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Sonya not only gets the short straw in life, she also has to be 'selfless' about it.

Sonya is good. And gentle, and quiet, and obedient. It is her hallmark, if she can be said to have one – what a bland, faded sort of word ‘good’ is – and yet, sometimes, such things are more a matter of circumstance than temperament. Sonya is good because she cannot be anything else. She has not the good fortune to be pretty, has not the luxury to be scandalous and vain like the Countess Hélène or giddy and naïve like Natasha or eccentric and independent like Marya. She is no more than an orphan, a poor relation, a hanger-on; expected only to be grateful, and unobtrusive, and useful in whatever way she can.

 

Sonya loves Natasha – she does – but she knows they are not equals, not like sisters – not like Natasha pretends to believe. Sonya walks half a step behind – never ahead, never drawing attention – she wears handed down clothes, but never what might be recognized; she is confidant and chaperone all rolled into one. Sonya is her cousin’s companion and she knows that this is what pays for her meals, as sure as if it paid for her bills.

 

She falls in love with her cousin – with Nikolai – because it is almost expected of her. Because he is her only hope of happiness. [The Russians do not read _Mansfield Park_ , but she would recognize Fanny and Edmund all the same.]

 

[She would recognize Henry Crawford too.] She knows why Dolokhov asks for her hand, knows it means that Nikolai wants to be free of her, but she will not release his conscience from their vows like that. If he stays for the sake of pity or of honor, she does not care. A marriage to Dolokhov would be a cold bed, its own sort of prison – moldering in a house he never visits in the country, while he pays his visits all the year in town. That is what these gentlemen do, and she will not dig herself a living grave such as that. Nikolai is still her only hope.

 

Except he isn’t, really. Because for Nikolai to wed her, first there is Natasha. Natasha, who has stockpiles of beauty, and just enough money to be young, and frivolous, and carefree, and desirable. If Sonya’s job is to cater to the whims of Natasha, then Natasha’s job, just as surely, is this: Natasha _must_ marry well. And it is Sonya’s job to see that she achieves it.

 

Prince Bolkonsky is promising. Andrey means money, and stability, and position. Andrey means hope. He seems kind, noble, and splendid, and Sonya does not mind the hours of reading his letters aloud to Natasha and helping her to compose the replies. Sonya enjoys shadowing their courtship – ever the dutiful chaperone – and imagines following these same footsteps with Nikolai on her arm and Natasha Bolkonsky, a giggling young matron, chaperoning behind.

 

When Natasha meets Anatole, Sonya cannot even begin to fathom her stupidity. Perhaps that is why the affair’s magnitude escapes her notice those three dreadful, crucial days. Can Natasha not see how many other lives she is ruining with this foolishness? [Of course she doesn’t – Sonya has enabled her self-centric blinders for years.] How she will hurt Andrey? The family? [Sonya?]

 

Sonya does not stand in the dark to save Natasha. She stands in the dark to save herself. To intercept the letter, prevent the elopement that will ruin all of Sonya’s dreams, as surely as they will ruin her foolish cousin’s reputation. Only Natasha has already sent the letter – the engagement is broken and for Sonya, that means that whatever else may come, it is already too late.

 

It is not Andrey’s return she dreads – it is Nikolai’s. She knows what is coming.

 

Natasha need not go far to wake Sonya in the middle of the night. Sonya waits beside the door, no longer to avert the tragedy, but strewn in its wake [Natasha has thrown her from their room]. Can one blame her for being lost in her own sorrows? For failing to avert Natasha’s recklessness once again? [Yes.]

 

Marya does, certainly. Natasha hates her for both the frantic rescues – both attempts nearly too little too late. This time tending Natasha is a penance Sonya believes she might even deserve.

 

But penance has got to end somewhere, and somehow, it seems it never does.

 

Penance is nursing a cousin back to health because she couldn’t stop her making herself ill. Purgatory is watching the wrong cousin marry the wrong Bolkonsky to save the family. Irony is watching Natasha find herself a better match anyhow. Resentment is being told Sonya was merely destined for loneliness by the very woman who trapped her in it. Playing governess to the children who should have been hers is simply hell.

 

And yet she grins and bears it. For it is all she will ever know.


	2. The Stubborn Attachment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, the strangest courtship in Moscow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because if this were a modern AU, our two favorite narrators would definitely be bonding over eye-roll snapchats commiserating about the idiocy of their respective best friends.

Dolokhov does not propose at the Rostov estate. He still befriends Anatole.

 

Anatole still meets Natasha.

 

This time, Sonya and Dolokhov are on speaking terms.

 

\-------

 

Where Natasha goes, so goes Sonya, ever her cousin’s chaperone. Where Anatole goes, so goes Dolokhov, caught within the Kuragins’ orbit. At the Opera, Sonya slips out of the family box, and they meet like this:

 

“Oh! Dolokhov – Fedya.”

 

“It is Sonya, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes. Yes, Sonya Rostova.” She turns as if about to return to her box. “I am here with my cousin.”

 

“Natasha.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And I am here with – ”

 

“Prince Kuragin.”

 

“Yes.”

 

They both look to the curtained doorway.

 

“Is he…?”

 

A shake of the head. She inhales.

 

“Would she…?”

 

A nod.

 

“Oh, Good Lord –”

 

“What sort of mess are they going get us into, eh?”

 

He takes her hand. Two heads poke around the curtain to peer into the box. Natasha and Anatole are too caught up in each other to notice.

 

“Oh this is not good. This is not good.”

 

“She’s…?”

 

“Engaged. And he is…?”

 

“Married. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

 

She starts pacing.

 

“Well, that’s a fine kettle of fish they’re jumping into.”

 

A hollow laugh.

 

“Don’t you just wish we could stand back and let it all implode?”

 

\-------

 

The next time they meet, it goes like this:

 

 

“Anatole, my friend, this is madness!”

-

“Natasha, what on earth can you be thinking?”

-

“She is a child, not yet a bride. And you – you are already married!”

-

“Natasha, I promise you, that man does not mean to marry you. He is not free to!”

-

“You are risking jail!”

-

“You are chasing your ruin!”

- 

_“Please!”_

-

“See reason, Anatole. 

-

“Listen to sense, Natasha.”

-

“No, I will not take her your letter.”

-

“No, I will not bring him your letter.”

-

_“Very well.”_

-

“Alright!”

 -

“Fine!”

 

They meet in the street:

  

_“Oh, there you are!”_

 

“Of all the mad – ” He holds up a letter. “An elopement!”

 

“An elopement?”

 

They quickly swap papers, breaking seals without a care for secrecy.

 

“She’s offering to run away with him.”

 

“He’s offering to run away with her.”

 

“She begs him to come for her!”

 

“He says he’s found a priest!”

 

“A priest? No he hasn’t.”

 

“She’s still engaged to Andrey.”

 

“Or has he?”

 

“Or is she?”

 

_“Oh God!”_

 

“They’re crazy.”

 

“The both of them.”

 

“Don’t I know it!”

 

“What on earth are we to do?”

 

He stops.

 

“We, little Rostova?”

 

“Well you’re here, aren’t you? Why shouldn’t you help me?”

 

\-------

 

Once the uncontrollable forces they call friends have collided and exploded, they meet again like this:

 

“Oh, Dolokhov!…Fedya.”

 

On the other side of her doorway, a twinkle lights up his eyes. “It is Sonya, isn’t it?”

 

“Yes – ” She smiles. “Yes, I’ve told you so before. Have you come to see my cousin?”

 

“Natasha?”

 

She nods.

 

“No – no, I have come for you.”


	3. I Have Heard What Elopements Are Like

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, the perils of making haste.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because, sometimes, you have to chase after your dreams.

Natasha marries Bolkonsy – quickly although far from quietly – in Moscow, shortly before he is scheduled to return to the front.

 

Anatole is far less interested in a flower who has already been plucked.

 

This time, Sonya is the source of the scandal:

She and Nikolai elope. She is too poor for him. No one but Natasha approves. [Natasha does not approve either; she thinks Sonya is too good for her brother.]

 

On a cold winter night, they sneak from the house together, where one of Nikolai’s friends from the front waits with a troika. Dolokohv introduces the driver as Balaga, and promises he will get them to Poland faster than anyone could ever hope to pursue them.

 

[The driver’s breath reeks of vodka.]

 

Nikolai hands her up into the sleigh, wraps her up in a fur cloak, and sits down beside her, taking her hand. They’re off!

 

[Really, really off.] The world is tearing past them at a terrifying speed, as the flee Moscow, galloping towards the border and their future.

 

Somewhere, on the icy road between Moscow and Warsaw, the troika overturns. Sonya has no idea where they are. [She will remember this place forever.]

 

Nikolai is caught beneath it, the sleigh crushing his ankle into the ice and the snow. Luckily, the horses are uninjured.

 

Luckily, they are not far from a village, and help may quickly be fetched. As the drunken driver careens off in search of someone, anyone to assist them, Sonya digs and digs and heaves and hoes until her fiance’s foot is free. Then, she packs it in snow, and wraps the fur cloak around him, and waits.

 

When she has begun to fear that Balaga has gotten himself lost and they will freeze to death, there come lights and voices in the distance – faintly at first, so faintly they might be a mirage. They resolve into a small search party, with lanterns, and blankets, and a steady, dependable sleigh. [Balaga is not driving.]

 

Nikolai needs a doctor – Sonya prays he will not lose the leg – and so they must return to the city. Unwed.

 

The Rostovs will not have Sonya in the house, will not allow her to see Nikolai. She must trust Natasha’s word that he steadily grows well. With her husband away at war, Natasha is mistress of her own household, and so, she takes Sonya in. Secretly.

 

When Nikolai is well again, he comes to visit. For several days, he refuses to see Sonya.

 

Finally, he relents. Sonya creeps into the drawing room, afraid to know how altered he will seem. She braces herself for the worst, and forces her gaze to begin at the floor.

 

His stance looks even enough, almost steady, just a slight favoring to one side. His coat is still well tailored, he has not grown thin with illness. He leans ever so slightly against the mantle. His cheeks are not so wan as she had feared.

 

He will not meet her eyes. When he finally does, she knows why.

 

They are hard set against her, icy in a way she has never seen them before. Not even when he fought with his mother to marry her – he had been full of passion then, with a fire in his eyes so hot it could have melted all the ice in Siberia. Now, he is cold and withdrawn.

 

He thanks her, for saving his life that night in the snow [under the troika], but he does not mean it, truly. [He does not know she is the one who pulled his leg free from the sleigh. He thinks that was the villagers, and she was just the furs and the snow on his ankle.]

 

He apologizes, for the sake of all that was between them, that things must be as they are. [Why must they? Once, he was ready to run off with her – since then what has changed?]

 

He returns the letters she wrote to him at the front. Sonya cannot bring herself to burn them.

 

Polite society will not see her. When Andrey returns home, he wants Sonya out of the house. Natasha stands firm for her cousin. She speaks to Pierre Bezuhov about the matter, and Pierre reminds Andrey what he once said about forgiving a fallen woman. Sonya supposes that’s what she is now.

 

She is allowed to stay. As thanks, she cares first for Andrey’s son (his late wife’s child), then for Andrey’s father, the crotchety old prince. Freed from such responsibilities, Andrey’s sister, Mary, blossoms. Sonya does not.

 

Mary starts to leave the house. Sonya stays in.

 

Mary attends balls and the opera with Natasha and Andrey. Sonya sees to their gowns.

 

Mary marries Nikolai. Sonya stays home with the father of the bride.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, this started out intending to be a happy ending where Sonya got her guy, but the plot troika scampered away from me, and suddenly, I was just about to kill Nikolai off. And then I realized it was far more fun (read: painful) to keep him alive after the failed elopement, and then reject her.
> 
> I haven't actually read War and Peace (and he isn't in the musical), so perhaps I'm being unfair to Nikolai. [Who am I kidding? He sounds like a bit of cad.]


	4. I Have No Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, the Bechdel Test is finally passed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Sonya and Mary need to be best friends and possibly platonic life partners.

A footman enters the room. “May I present Sofia Rostova.”

 

“Oh. Oh, hello,” Mary stands, stammering. “Won’t you show her in?”

 

A rather mousy looking girl walks in and curtseys immediately, her eyes downcast.

 

“Princess.”

 

“Do…do sit down.”

 

The two girls sit, side by side on the long sofa. They glance up at each other. They do not speak.

 

The silence is awkward, but they are both used to that.

 

Finally, Sonya begins, “I have come to speak to you on behalf of my cousin…That is, I have come to speak with you about my cousin – ”

 

“The Countess, Natasha.”

 

“Yes, she has…”

 

“Refused my brother.”

 

“…not been – well, yes. I suppose so. I hoped it had not come to that.”

 

Mary is bewildered. “You did not know?”

 

“No. Yes – Oh, she has been so very, very foolish.” Sonya lays her head into her hands.

 

After a time, Mary lays a hand on her shoulder. The gesture is slightly awkward, but comforting all the same.

 

Finally Sonya, wiping her eyes – only just a little – sits up.

 

Mary moves her hand to take Sonya’s.

 

“Well, there is not much use in covering things over now. And I am not one often privileged by the gossips. Why do you not tell me what has happened?”

 

Natasha may have found the Princess hesitant and strange, but to Sonya, her reserve invites confidence. And so, Sonya begins…

 

\-------

 

Slowly, Sonya and Mary forge a friendship.

 

When Natasha has made herself ill and Sonya cannot bear the fear and the dread that linger in the house, she calls upon the Princess Bolkonsky.

 

When Andrey returns home, and brushes Mary aside with a harshness more cutting than their father’s, she removes herself for a visit with the quiet, young Rostova girl.

 

When Andrey will not allow “the cousin of that harlot” in _his_ house, Mary puts on her coat and muff, and they go for a walk.

 

When Natasha shrieks of betrayal and siding against her with the sister of Bolkonsky, Sonya finds it is not only Sundays that she has business at the church.

 

Slowly, they become almost inseparable.

 

\-------

 

When Mary’s father takes ill, for what she is sure will be the final time, she asks Sonya to come and stay with her.

 

When he loses things, Sonya has an almost magical knack for finding them just before the meltdown ensues. When he rages, Sonya is there to step between father and daughter, as if the words do not hurt her. When Mary needs to leave the room, Sonya is there to relieve her.

 

When Mary needs a shoulder to cry on, Sonya’s is ready and waiting.

 

When Old Prince Bolkonsky finally meets his maker and Mary feels like her world has been blown to pieces, Sonya is there to catch her.

 

When the peasants threaten a revolt, and Mary is sure the world really will come crashing down around them, Sonya keeps her head. They do not require Nikolai’s help to acquire the horse and carts to leave, but it is not unpleasant to have him escort them nonetheless.

 

Sonya knows that Nikolai is making eyes at Mary. Mary knows it too, but moreso, she knows how much Nikolai means to Sonya. No one speaks about engagements.

 

\-------

 

When the dust and the ashes of Moscow have settled, when Andrey lies dying in his former fiancé’s arms, Mary and Sonya embark for the Rostov estate. When her final goodbyes have been said to her brother, Mary cannot bear to part with her closest companion as well. Sonya knows there is nothing left for her in the home or the heart of her cousin Nikolai.

 

Together they will start afresh.

 

\-------

 

If Mary has anything now – with no husband to speak of and her father and brother both gone – it is money, and lots of it. Sonya has never known such money before.

 

Sonya has always dressed plainly from necessity. Mary has always done so by choice, but she cannot begrudge her friend a smidge of vanity, as she once judged and begrudged Natasha. They will not be dressed as a lady and her companion – they will enter society together, side by side.

 

Mary once filled her days up with devotions, because there was nothing else to do with them, but Sonya knows that there is time enough for church on Sundays. Together, they will learn to fill up the days.

 

Sonya once shrunk to the edges of a gathering, sure that no one would ever care to hear what a nobody like her had to say, but Mary knows the value of a good conversation, and she knows that Sonya’s mind is teeming with thoughts unsaid. Together, they will learn how to command a room.

 

Both of them once rather dreaded becoming old maids, but it will not be for a lack of proposals that they are so. It is only that they learn their independence and friendship are the things that allow them to shine. Together.

 

\-------

 

“Did you ever think, that winter you stayed with Marya Dmitryevna in Moscow – ?”

 

“Or when she came to your house to put the fear of God into your father?”

 

“The fear of God? I think you mean the fear of her!”

 

The two women giggle like schoolgirls.

 

“Did I ever think…?”

 

“Did you ever think, we’d turn out exactly like her?”

 

“What – respectable society matrons…?”

 

“Just a little too old and too rich for scandal…”

 

“Doing whatever we damn well please!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See - I can balance out one happy ending for every unhappy one.


	5. Everyone Has Always Liked Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, the hedgehog knows one thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it was inevitable.

Some wise and ancient Greek philosopher, Nikolai once told them, said that the fox knows many tricks; and the hedgehog only one – but that is the best one of all.

 

Natasha is like the Hedgehog. She may be foolish and reckless and sentimental, but she knows how to make people love her.

 

And Sonya, who has known her since they were children, is no exception. How could she ever have failed to be drawn into the orbit of her radiant young cousin, who is bursting with love for all the universe?

 

To Sonya, Natasha is dazzling and joyous and light. She is the kind face Sonya bids goodnight to each evening, the reassuring hand that squeezes hers beneath the table, the soft voice which always greets her with cheer.

 

She is the candle which lights the dark Russian winter nights, the clock by which she measures her days, the face Sonya sees on Sunday mornings when she tries to glimpse the future in the reflections of the mirror.

 

She knows that future is not what she wishes it would be.

 

Natasha says she cannot know what love is, but Sonya does, she knows it better than anyone could imagine.

 

For Nikolai has told her of the Greeks, and so Sonya knows, in another world, what their lives might be. She knows, also, that for herself, Natasha feels only philia – the love of a sister. And Sonya watches as her cousin’s heart blossoms with eros for the twinkling of the stars, and the humming of guitar strings, and Prince Andrey, and the beautiful glow of the moonlit snow. And then for Anatole.

 

For Natasha, Sonya feels so much more.

 

She loves Natasha with all the fondness and tenderness of her first true friend, bound together by the gossamer chains of secrets whispered beneath the bedcovers on a dark, moonless night. [This is Philia.] She loves Natasha with ardor of a lover, wants to embrace her boldly in the warm summer wind and sing her praises to the cold winter sky. [This is Eros.] She loves Natasha with the steadfast goodwill to see her happy, even in a future that will bring Sonya pain. [This is Agape.]

 

This is Sonya’s future: to keep Natasha safe from ruin until she is married, to keep her comfortable when she is unwell, to keep up her spirits when she is disheartened, keep her household when she is overwhelmed, her toilette when she is dressing, her husband when he has grown cross with her, and her children until they are grown.

 

Sonya will live out her days as a minor moon shadowing her cousin’s orbit, but in her moments of contentment – just for a moment – this will be enough to make her gleam brightly in the reflected beauty of her sun. It will have to be enough.

 

Because Sonya knows many things – a little about the Greeks for one, and the longings of a schoolgirl, and the volume of a suitcase in cloaks and dresses, and the right thing to say to ones betters, and how to fill in all the gaps where her cousin does not begin to realize all the things she does not know. And how to recognize what can never be.

 

Because for all the tricks she commands like the Fox, Sonya cannot learn the best thing of all.

 

And that is how to make someone love her, with the song of the moon and the stars in the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I first heard about the hedgehog who knows only one thing – how to make people love her – in an Eva Ibbotson novel about a Russian Countess post-revolution, and when I was thinking about how to focus this chapter, the association with Natasha sprung to mind. Imagine my surprise, then, to find that the most famous modern discussion of ‘the Fox and the Hedgehog’ (which usually has no mention at all of love) was from an essay categorizing the worldviews of different writers (either eclectic or single-focused), with a particular focus on Tolstoy (the eventual conclusion is apparently that he’s a Fox who thinks that people should be Hedgehogs).


	6. Maybe I’ll Marry Someone Myself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, the May bride and the December groom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Sonya deserves to be a princess.

No one quite knows what to make of things, when the ailing, aging Prince Bolkonsky proposes marriage – not to the sort of stunning beauty who could be written off as an old man’s attempt to feel young again, or a conniving social climber trying to sink her claws into a doddering old man’s fortune, but to the mousy, slip-of-a-thing cousin of his son’s would-be bride.

 

‘Oh, he’s only being contrary,’ the society mothers say, ‘it’ll wear off before the wedding – it always does.’ ‘It’s a kindness to Mary,’ say the old maids, ‘gives him someone else to order about.’ ‘It’s right prudent on her part, take herself a husband wherever she can,’ say the poor relations, knowingly. ‘No, it’s right foolish!’ cry the young romantics, ‘she’ll be miserable the rest of her days.’ The cynics snort at that, “Nay, only the rest of his.’

 

All of them and none of them are right.

 

He is being contrary, choosing a wife to spite his children, and the sort of woman everyone least expects at that, but why should any of that prevent his following through? He’s a stubborn old man, after all – everybody knows that.

 

It should be a kindness to Mary – there’s someone to share her burden, and in another world, the two women might have become fast friends, but here, there is nothing but resentment on her part, and unwanted relationships are wont to curdle and sour.

 

Sonya is being prudent – she knows there won’t be love in this marriage, but this offer is the best she’s likely to receive. Sonya is also miserable – caring for the prince is grueling and thankless, and there are certainly days she regrets her choice.

 

Days when Bolkonsky screams, and rages, and hurls things towards her head. When Natasha will not visit her, and Andrey stomps about scowling, and Mary – who won’t give up running the household – conveniently ‘forgets’ to order a place for Sonya at the table. Evenings when her husband gropes for her, longing for a fumble, or grasping for a chamber pot, or shaking in the throws of a fever and she never knows which. Nights when she sleeps – if she sleeps – on a pallet on her husband’s floor and never goes near the dusty suite of rooms no one ever truly bothered to clean out for his second wife. Mornings where she is met at the breakfast table with stone cold silence, and accusatory glares that say, well, haven’t you brought this upon yourself.

 

And yet, in the end, it is the cynics who’ve gotten things right.

 

Nothing lasts forever, marriage included, and their vows say right there, ‘til death do us part.’

 

Eventually, Prince Bolkonsky dies.

 

Bolkonsky is stingy. Bolkonsky is difficult and disagreeable, and disinterested in anything that might bring happiness to anyone but himself. Surely, he is not thinking of Sonya when he does it. And yet, he does it, still.

 

Bolkonsky leaves Sonya everything. Or rather, Bolkonsky leaves nothing to his children, and therefore everything to his wife, who happens to be Sonya.

 

Her children-in-law hate her. Natasha will not speak to her. The servants laugh the first time she tries to give them orders.

 

Sonya learns not to care.

 

She gives Andrey and Mary allowances – generous ones, which become ever so slightly less generous every time they insult her. They run their own households, which she never visits, but sometimes, she sends someone to check on the accounts for her, just so they’ll know that she can.

 

She writes Natasha, invites her to come and stay with her, to rekindle their friendship and put aside the harsh words they have passed. When Natasha does not come, she books herself a box at the opera anyway, and learns to enjoy the music, and the gossip, and the attention she has never before had the chance to receive.

 

She visits with Marya and learns how to run her household with a firm and steady hand. She comes home with her feet planted, confidence in her voice, and a list of references to replace the staff who cannot learn to respect her.

 

She tries on new dresses in the finest shops, and learns what it feels like to wear something that fits her truly, and not something made over from a dress someone else wore last season. She tears down the dusty curtains to let some light into musty old rooms, and starts reclaiming her husband’s house into someplace that begins to feel like home.

 

She learns that as a rich, young, widow, she has all the social freedoms she never thought she’d have. She can flirt with the young officers – both the noble sort who remind her of Nikolai or Andrey and the wild kind who bring to mind Dolokhov or Anatole – and no one tells her to mind her tongue, or let the more eligible ladies have a turn. She can brush shoulders with the most scandalous of women like Helene Bezukov, and no one says a word, because she isn’t expected to remain a blushing virgin any more. She’s borne out her burdens living with Bolkonsky, and she is no longer required to be _good_.

 

Instead, she devotes herself to being happy; takes joy in being generous, relishing in her newfound freedoms of both time and money. She surrounds herself in good company – good food, good friends, and good wine. She learns how to measure a good life, by no other metric than herself.

 

And when she eventually chooses to take another husband, it is on nobody’s conditions but her own. This marriage will not be borne of necessity, will not be forced by lack of options or constrained by the type of finances that turn disparate temperaments into distant glances and raging tempers. This time, the dowager princess marries for love.


	7. Our Fiancés, Fighting in the War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, Wars make Widows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because when ‘there’s a war going on,’ the easiest AU in the world is to imagine what might happen if a different character were the one to die.

Nikolai has not written to Sonya in months. She writes to him steadfastly even so, and cannot know if he has been captured or injured or killed, or if he simply no longer loves her. [She fears, perhaps most of all, that he no longer loves her.]

 

When the letter finally comes, it brings her two answers in one. Her worst fears are realized – two-fold – and she feels guilty as much as distraught. If only she had thought to worry, really worry, he might be dead [it seemed too unimaginable to even think on], then perhaps he would be alive, and that would be better than anything. It would be, despite how much it would hurt to know from his own lips that he did not love her.

 

[She knows it anyway – his last letter came months and months before he was killed, and there was no last love note for her tucked in his breast pocket like the soldiers in stories.]

 

He is dead and he did not love her, not any more, and she cannot even wish him dead like any other slighted lover in her books. And no one will hear a word against him.

 

And strangely – ever so strangely – no one will hear a word against her. “Practically married,” they whisper, “nearly a widow,” in hushed voices, behind the handkerchiefs of gossip-mourners, when she and Natasha walk, clutching each other tightly, into the church. And Sonya realizes – mixed blessing as it is – that no one knows. No one knows he ceased to write to her, no one read the angry words of that last letter oh so long ago.

 

She has been silent, oh these many months, in her private grief – for her and Nikolai’s love was never much well thought of by the family, and she could not bear to see her aunt and uncle take pleasure in her pain. And now – though she must stay silent still – her reticence may reap a bittersweet reward.

 

She could never have been Nikolai’s bride – she knows that now, with a sinking feeling, like a pit festering at the bottom of her heart. Never his wife, she is too pitiful and poor a pining relation; but pitiful, poor, and pining suit a young almost-widow very well. They lend her a gravitas, a dignified weight.

 

Sonya has always looked a little sad, but now they say it suits her. And perhaps it does.

 

Young Petya still rides off in splendor, if slightly soberer in the light of his brother’s death, to do his bit, but this time – a little less reckless, a little more caution – he comes back.

 

And Petya, dear young cousin, has always looked to Sonya with a kind eye. There is not much left to inherit, when it comes down to it – not with the family’s fortunes as they are – but of what there is for him, Petya is determined that Sonya should have her share. She is his brother’s widow in all but ceremony, after all, and Petya has always looked up to Nikolai.

 

[Sometimes, Sonya feels guilty for lying to him about where she stood with Nikolai, in the end, and wonders if Petya would still care for her if he knew.]

 

It may not be much – when he marries, she may still be quite nearly a governess, but in Petya’s house, Sonya knows she will always be given one of the best rooms, and a place of pride at his table. And when she marries – _if_ she marries – Petya will find her a dowry, somehow. And that means Sonya has hope.


	8. For There’s Fire in the Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, the Firebird Ascends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because Sonya is tenacious and I like to mix my mythological references.

Moscow is burning, like Ilium before her, and Sonya’s whole world has disintegrated to bits.

 

Moscow is burning, with the Rostovs inside of her, and Natasha has tried to run off like Helen with Paris, and perhaps that indeed was the act that has undone them all.

 

Moscow is burning, and her beautiful onion domes have collapsed like the toppled towers of Ilium, and Sonya can only hope to rise from the rubble and ashes like a phoenix – to make like the fabled Aeneas, and slowly but surely build herself Rome.

 

But right now, Moscow is burning, and Sonya does not know how to begin building a new beginning, so all she can do is to make herself useful in the now.

 

Moscow is burning, and they are bringing in soldiers by the cartload, but if they do not mean to bring them to a pyre, them someone has got to start thinking about getting them out. And Natasha is dithering, but she truly does mean well, and while it is a sweet plan to leave them this empty house as an infirmary, it surely is a better one to load the soldiers instead of the furniture onto their carts. So while Natasha does the convincing of the count and countess, Sonya gets down to the rather dirtier business of bodies and baggage and beds.

 

Moscow is burning, and the firelight plays tricks on a fretful, weary mind. That fevered face, across the room there, might, for a second, look like Andrey’s; but it might just be a flicker of memory, and for the moment, this man before her needs Sonya more.

 

Moscow is burning at her back, and the cart beneath her is bumpy, and her whole body droops with exhaustion, but the moment a man’s fever breaks for her, Sonya feels happier than she ever thought she could be again. For all that her future is still a sea of the unknown, Sonya feels like Noah must have, when the dove flew back from her journey bearing a branch of hope.

 

…

 

Moscow is burning in the distance, and the glow of the fire behind her makes Sonya’s red hair shine as if it were lit from within. And despite her disarray – the stains of sweat and dirt and blood on her once-white dress, and the sleepless circles above her cheekbones, and the disheveled look of an up-do that has mostly fallen down – all Prince Ivan sees is this halo of light, and the kind smile, and the bright-shining hopefulness in her eyes, and he knows that this is the angel on earth who pulled him through the night.

 

Moscow is burning, and perhaps somewhere the _Zhar-ptitsa_ laughs at the Tsars’ hubris, but for Ivan, she has left behind her a feather of hope. Beautiful, red-golden, and glowing, Sonya lights up a room on this darkest of nights.

 

Moscow is burning – if only in his mind – but when he wakes up, panting, expecting still-unfamiliar darkness, he finds instead the gentle light of a candle, held by steady, careworn hands. She has been pacing the halls then, his sober little maiden, and he is not the only one to have dreamed of Moscow burning this night.

 

Moscow has burned herself to his retinas, seared herself to his soul, but as wounds heal, slowly, Ivan finds he is not the only one she has marked. He hears the voices of fallen comrades – even as more still lie dying around him – and Sonya sees the never-ending number of those she could not save.

 

Moscow is burning – somewhere far away from here – but here there is peace, and light, and hope that someday, maybe, they’ll find strength to rebuild the lives that they once led. Here, only his Firebird is glowing, a beacon of light, leaving feathers of hope and kindness – for men growing stronger or weaker, officer or foot-soldier all alike. Ivan knows that a Firebird’s feathers are not to be chased after like so many breadcrumbs, and does not dare to let himself hope she might choose to make her nest with him.

 

Moscow may still be burning – may be nothing but rubble – but here, out in the countryside, Ivan can feel himself, at least, beginning to rebuild. His body is mending, and now it wants something to be doing, so he asks his makeshift nursemaid – asks Sonya – what he can do to help. Ivan does not know how to tend to the injured, but he can lift a body, bank a fire, force open a window to give a bed-ridden man some air. Sonya tells him he’s being foolish – of course there will be plenty of use for all that when he’s stronger, but in the meantime, anyone can sit and read aloud to stave off another man’s boredom, anyone can learn to tend a fevered brow.

 

Moscow is burning in the embers of the fireplace, as Sonya and Ivan lean their heads together at the end of a long, hard day. And maybe, they do more staring into the firelight than glancing not-quite-covertly at each other, maybe the hand he holds is too rough and calloused, and the one in her palm is still bandaged in bed-sheet-white. Maybe their courtship, as such, isn’t quite conventional. But when Moscow is burning, it’s hard for any of that to seem worth a care. They have each other, and tomorrow, and a future where forever might be eternal, or it might be the instant of a look that meets the other’s eye.

 

…

 

On this night, Moscow is burning, not with fear and danger, but with lanterns and candles, laughter and merriment, with hope and with joy and with love. Tonight, Moscow is alight with happiness, and at the center of it all, the red-gold Firebird marries her Prince.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prince Ivan is not a reference to any characters I'm unaware of in Tolstoy who may happen share any portion of his name, but rather to the protagonist who is rescued by the eponymous Firebird in Diaghilev and Stravinsky’s ballet.


	9. Just No More Unmarried Heiresses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or, the road to Gretna Green is paved with good intentions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because it’s 1812, so why not crossover with Pride and Prejudice?

Natasha gets married [to Andrey, obviously]. Nikolai spends the entire wedding making cow eyes at his new sister-in-law.

 

The next morning, Marya announces her plans to leave for London. [“I’ve had enough of this war to last me a lifetime. Even if the Russian winters cannot keep the French Emperor out, the English Channel will.”]

 

To Natasha, she says:

“I’ll miss you, my darling. Be good.”

 

To Sonya, she says:

“You’ll accompany me. Obviously.”

 

“But, Natasha…”

 

“Is a married woman now, Sonya. She’s no longer in need of a chaperone. So unless you think you’d enjoy a lifetime of playing nursemaid to your cousins’ children, I suggest you start detaching yourself from the household. Immediately.”

 

“But London?”

 

“Your English is decent, and I find myself in need of a companion.” She pauses, and looks Sonya straight in the eye. “Besides, I’m feeling generous.”

 

There is an ice to her tone, which suggests, as the English would say, that Sonya had best not look a gift horse in the mouth.

 

\---

 

Sonya hates the way eyes linger over her in London’s assembly rooms, so different to the gazes that glanced past her in Moscow, and yet irredeemably alike. In Moscow she was an institution – poor and passed over, but a well-known fixture all the same. Ignorable. Here she is a curiosity, the plain-faced girl with the Russian accent and no money in her purse. The family name is not enough here, whatever Marya hopes.

 

She tries to stay by her patroness, disappearing amongst the matrons, and chaperones, and companions of all sorts. Forgettable. But Marya will not let her, she is determined to introduce Sonya around, as if she might be marriageable, when everybody knows that she is not.

 

One evening, in Almack’s, Marya drags her across the room to a pair of gentlemen – one fair and one dark. The fair one looks cheerful, perhaps even friendly, the other as though he cannot help wishing to be anywhere but here. Sonya sympathizes.

 

Marya, it transpires, knows the dark-haired one, and is either genuinely interested in hearing how it goes with him, or trying to be subtle about pushing Sonya toward the fair one. Sonya can never tell.

 

Mr. Darcy, it seems, has a sister, and at last the purpose for the conversation is revealed. Marya wishes to introduce her to the sister – this Georgiana Darcy – but the girl is still too young for the Season and has been sent away to Ramsgate with her governess. Ever-eager not to disappoint, Bingley – the fair-haired one – offers an introduction to his sisters in her place, and they prove, in the end, to be rather less welcoming than their brother.

 

Assuming Miss Darcy to be more of the same, Sonya is entirely prepared to write the whole encounter off. Until, that is, Marya invites herself round to tea.

 

\---

 

Sonya has learned to dread the arrival of letters. They never bring anything but trouble.

  
Not that she isn’t grateful – of course – to have intercepted Anatole’s letters to Natasha in time, and averted what might have been a terrible family disaster, but really. Why is it always her?

 

They’re sitting in Mr. Darcy’s sitting room when it comes. He cheerfully opens the letter, pleased to have news of dear Georgiana to share with Marya; then, his face turns white. His eyes scan the page once, twice, three times more before he folds the letter carefully back along its creases and sticks it hurriedly in his pocket.

 

He attempts to resume conversation, as if the letter had never come, but his body is wound up in a tension so tight they can almost hear it hum through the room. It is a discordant note, like the wrong string plucked on a guitar, but Sonya is happy to let him pretend, until one of them can think up a pretext to end the visit. Marya, however, will not have it.

 

“Fitzwilliam, what on earth has happened?”

 

“It…it…” he stumbles, as if grasping for the words, “It would seem that Mrs. Younge has proved herself to be an entirely unsuitable chaperone. If you will excuse me, I must go and make arrangements to collect my sister.”

 

“Why of course, we would not dare to keep you from Georgiana, only – ”

 

It never ceases to amaze Sonya, the way Marya has of presenting even the most delicate of suggestions as an unshakeable command.

 

“Only what?”

 

“Only, if it’s a chaperone you’re in need of, I can’t think of anyone more suitable than dear Sonya here.”

 

“I beg your pardon, madam, and I’m sure Miss Rostova’s conduct is irreproachable, but I am in need of rather more than a lady’s companion.”

 

“Oh, I know you are – you certainly shouldn’t be in such a dither over things if it were as simple as that. But Sonya’s track record is impeccable, as are her charges’.”

 

“Marya!” Sonya hisses, not quite sure whether to be more concerned by the mercenary depiction of her relationship with Natasha, or the implication that Marya might be willing to let the cat out of the bag on the whole Moscow affair.

 

Marya is undeterred. “Now, I’m not sure what sort of mischief she’s got herself into – or nearly got herself into for that matter – but whoever he is, he can’t be worse than the scoundrel Kuragin, and Sonya put an end to that mess straightaway.”

 

“Well, perhaps if you tell me about it, I might – ” Darcy runs his hands through his hair. “Oh, blast it! You remember George Wickham?”

 

\---

 

And so, Sonya is engaged to play nursemaid to another silly young thing, as foolish and naïve and impetuous as Natasha, without the years of affection to make things bearable. She’s a wealthy heiress to boot.

 

And English, too. In short, Sonya is determined to dislike her.

 

When Georgiana first arrives, she is breathtakingly beautiful, and Sonya decides she must be vain as well.

 

She stands in her brother’s shadow and speaks to no one at dinner, and Sonya reasons she must be proud.

 

Mr. Darcy tells them his sister is shy, but really, what has she got to be shy of?

 

When Sonya goes down to meet her in the parlor the next morning, she is sure to bring a book.

 

\---

 

They sit there, in silence, for what feels like hours, with Sonya on one couch, reading, and Georgiana, across the room with her embroidery. Georgiana is perched so primly on the edge of her seat, that Sonya is too nervous to sit back comfortably in hers.

 

They have been given instructions to ‘get to know one another,’ so when Marya enters to room, much later, to see them wholly engaged in solitary pursuits, Sonya can tell she is ready to throw her arms up in despair. Instead, she insists upon a card game.

 

Later, she presses Georgiana to go to the pianoforte and play. The music is…beautiful. Perhaps even more beautiful than the musician, and if she closes her eyes to listen, Sonya can almost forget how annoyed she is to be here, and how much she wishes to be home.

 

Natasha may have loved guitars, but Sonya has always preferred a piano.

 

\---

 

Dinner, that evening, is not much improved, but the next morning, it is clear both Sonya and Georgiana have been chastised. Georgiana makes some stumbling, halting steps towards small talk, and Sonya begins to wonder is she really is simply _that_ shy.

 

The girl before her is nothing like the headstrong, willful young woman she imagined.

 

Things go better after that.

 

Still, the conversation is terribly limited. Sonya cannot discuss literature, because the novel she is currently reading is about an affair, and that would be tactless. Georgiana, it seems, cannot discuss her own doings because – Sonya suspects – she is terrified of the attention. Neither of them cares for talking about the weather.

 

Georgiana hits upon it accidentally, trying to deflect questions about her embroidery by offering Sonya a needle and frame of her own. Sonya, who has been more trained in mending than fancy-work hardly knows how to demure. Instead, Georgiana enlists her help in color-choosing, and soon enough, Georgiana is guiding Sonya’s hand to take a turn.

 

Until now, Sonya thought of Georgiana almost as a timid, trembling little bird; beautiful but delicate as glass. The hand on hers though is steady, and warm, and kind. Gentle still, but confident. Georgiana is in her element when her focus is on others, and suddenly she is glowing with the warmth of the summer sun.

 

\---

 

Then, the letter comes.

 

Sonya is sure it was not on the tray at breakfast time, and so too, she is certain that Georgiana ought not to have it. Someone must have snuck it in to her on her almost-husband’s orders. Sonya comes in to the drawing room to see her crying, and braces herself to deal with Anatole all over again. That is what she is here for after all.

 

Georgiana’s tears, though, are not for her Anatole – her Wickham, if Sonya makes the name out correctly through all the tears. These are not the wails of a disappointed lover, with anger and locking Sonya on the other side of the bedroom door.

 

No – no, these are tears of embarrassment, tears of shame.

 

Georgiana is angry yes, but not with Darcy for stopping her, or Sonya for merely being there. She is angry with George Wickham who ensnared her, with the governess who betrayed her, and mostly, she is angry with herself and her own foolishness. She rests her head on Sonya’s shoulder and she sobs.

 

\---

 

After that, it is like a dam has broken. Sonya becomes Georgiana’s confidant, and the tiny, everyday confessions start to pour forth. Georgiana is intimidated by her aunt, Lady Catherine, and hopes she does not really mean to come and stay. Charles Bingley is lovely, but his sisters are horrible [Sonya concurs] and she believes that Miss Caroline is trying [and failing] to catch her dear brother’s eye.

 

Sonya nods, and agrees with her, and wishes she could reciprocate. But the only thing she could confess is…something that she can never say.

 

Darcy asks her if she would like to do the Season in London, and Georgiana blushes and shakes her head and says she is not yet ready. Maybe next year. That night, alone with Sonya, she blushes more and confesses she doesn’t know if she ever will be.

 

\---

 

Months pass, and Mr. Darcy – finally certain that Georgiana will come to no harm under Sonya’s watchful [tender] gaze – leaves for Hertfordshire, where Bingley is looking to take a house call Netherfield. There is a beautiful sort of domestic peace at Pemberly, with the master gone, and only the servants Georgiana has known all her life to spy them. They fall into giggles over breakfast, sit closer than strictly necessary at their sewing, and play piano duets long into the evening [despite their decidedly unmatched skill].

 

Georgiana has recently discovered poetry – Sonya suspects it was initially Wickham’s influence – and insists Sonya read to her from Byron’s _Childe Harold_ [how on earth she got her hands on that one is anyone’s guess], and Scott’s _Lady of the Lake_ to ‘practice her English.’ She reads a scandalous review of _The Giaour_ and begins plotting how to trick her brother into buying it for her. On the whole, Sonya thinks it is perhaps less dangerous for Georgiana to have her dose of fantasies by reading instead of by doing.

 

[Well, less dangerous for Georgiana, at least.]

 

There is an almost magical sort of stillness in the air, which cannot last forever, and Sonya dreads to see how their days will change when Darcy returns.

 

But at last, he does – if only briefly – ranting about Bingley’s foolishness, and ill-advised matches, and the frustrating enchantment of Lizzie Bennet’s fine, bright eyes. Soon enough, he is off again, to visit Lady Catherine at Rosings and therefore put off her dreaded coming to Pemberley. Nonetheless, it cannot be coincidence [can it?], when Georgiana decides she must draw Sonya [over and over again], trying to capture the magic of her ‘beautiful, intelligent eyes’.

 

\---

 

The next time that Darcy returns, he brings Miss Elizabeth Bennet with him, and Sonya is only a little jealous that both siblings seem so entranced by this new-comer. [Well, perhaps more than a little.]

 

The next time he returns – after a wave of Wickham-related scandal Sonya cannot shield from Georgiana – the Bennet girl is his bride-to-be. Sonya is certain that she will be dismissed after the bridal tour. Indeed, Darcy goes so far as to suggest it [And why shouldn’t he? His wife would surely be a responsible and reputable chaperone for his sister], but Georgiana surprises everyone with her vehemence. She will not consent to be parted from Sonya; she could not bear it.

 

Years pass, and Sonya still flinches slightly when Mrs. Darcy speaks of her stubborn, spinster sister Mary, and Fitzwilliam tries to talk his sister into _really_ doing the Season in town. [She is presented, of course – it would be a scandal for Lady Catherine’s niece not to be, but she never really _Does the Season_.] And yet, somehow, Sonya remains. She becomes an established member of the household, with an accustomed place at the table and a chair called hers in the parlor. When rooms are rearranged for Darcy’s children, she ends up right beside Georgiana – in what used to be a pair of distinguished guest rooms, with a connecting door between.

 

It is not the life she might have imagined – the head of hair beside her is blonde instead of dark; her language is no longer Russian; and the children in the nursery call her neither ‘Aunt’ nor nursemaid. But she lives in a house in the country, with the dearest of souls beside her, and Sonya does not think she could have ever been this happy, anyplace else.


End file.
